Townhall

Fred Thompson, the dinosaur who was never political, sent me an e-mail today advertising his new column in Town Hall, a new conservative magazine. The covers are great–one depicts a shining image of the statue of liberty set to a backdrop of brightly-lit clouds. Because New York is obviously too liberal a background for the mighty statue of liberty. Never mind as well that the statue of liberty more or less is a symbol of the U.S.’s liberal immigration policies (which the Republicans are staunchly running against in this election cycle). A choice quote from his e-mail:

“Primaries and elections sometimes do not turn out the way we might like. While campaigns cycles come to an end, the principles we fight for are timeless. These are the principles that inspired our Founding Fathers, and resulted in a Constitution that delineated the powers of the central government, established checks and balances among the branches of government and further diffused governmental power by a system of Federalism.

As conservatives, it is our job to ensure that these principles are maintained and preserved for future generations. But increasingly these values are under assault. In foreign affairs, our political opponents ignore our progress in Iraq and want to return America to isolationism. Economically, they call for dramatic tax hikes and increased government spending. Judicially, they support activist judges who strive to make the law rather than interpret it.”

Yes, Fred. Hate to break it to you but Isolationism and populism are just as if not much more so the so-called ‘principles’ by the definitions that your particular brand of conservatism seeks to propagate (timeless, old). Isn’t the American tradition bound up in anti-imperialism as well? By what criterion do you use to judge our foray into Iraq a truly ‘conservative’ version of outreach (though, in a way that is probably too ironic for Fred to understand, it is).

Thank god I can actually joke about this kind of tripe. A few years ago this would have had me genuinely scared.